Construction near Josephine Street and University Boulevard requires traffic detours from the Cherry Creek retail area in Denver. Several businesses, including Earl’s at 201 Columbine St., say they have had to close.

Cherry Creek North retailers say they’re deploying all of the marketing tricks of their trade to lure back customers scared away by a major city storm drainage improvement project that has slowed traffic to a crawl.

Lucy Activewear, located on Clayton Lane, is in the heart of chic Denver shopping district. But store manager Susan Moore says traffic woes have dropped her customer counts by about 25 percent.

“Customers do it once, and then they won’t go back to Cherry Creek,” she said.

Work on Josephine Street and University Boulevard between Cherry Creek North Drive and East Sixth Avenue will improve the way storm water is collected and funneled away.

The first phase of the project is expected to be done by Nov. 21, but it’s already too late for some businesses, including Little Me’s children’s boutique on East Third Avenue, which was unable to weather the decline in customer visits.

“Thankfully, we are corporately owned,” Moore said. “They will support us through this.”

Two Pals & A Pup, a pet bakery and “bowtique,” will absolutely stay in business, store owner Jen Newhouse said.

The store is lucky to have loyal customers, Newhouse said. But Two Pals has also done what it can to help. For example, the store now offers services, including pet-food deliveries.

“As a small business owner, you adapt,” she said.

Newhouse said her customers say they are frustrated trying to find parking.

Moore said she is annoyed by the slow-moving vehicle traffic, that she says could be better directed by humans than signal lights.

Though the current phase is expected to wrap up before the major holiday shopping season begins the day after Thanksgiving, the city is hoping to speed up the project.

The Denver City Council in July OK’d a noise variance that will allow construction crews to work around the clock, starting at 9 p.m. Sunday and running through 9 p.m. Friday.

Working at night, the city said, should cause less traffic disruption in the neighborhood.

The Cherry Creek Arts Festival saw about a 15 percent decrease in attendance from last year, but festival CEO Terry Adams blames the Fourth of July holiday, which landed on the festival weekend, rather than construction.

“It depends on when the holiday falls,” he said. “When we compete with the Fourth, numbers go down.”

Adams said the construction team shut down the majority of its work so that it wasn’t competing with the event. A street was temporarily paved and reopened to give access to festival patrons.

“We felt incredible support from the construction team,” Adams said.

More drainage and road improvements remain to be done, but the second phase will be shorter in duration and have less impact, Denver Public Works spokeswoman Nancy Kuhn

said.

The second phase does not include work on University, Josephine or First Avenue — the major streets at the edges of the shopping district. It is expected to begin in January or February and end in May or June.

The first solar eclipse to cross the continental United States in nearly a century comes at an especially inopportune time for many employers. From 10:15 a.m. Pacific until just before 3 p.m. Eastern time — some of the busiest hours of the workweek — the moon’s shadow will hit land in Newport, Ore. and leave the continent near Charleston, S.C.